It is tiresome to read about the shortcomings of a transformational-generative grammar approach without understanding why it remains an important perspective for many who study the nature of language as their academic discipline.  Here is an example of  what I mean.

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Diagramming is especially useful for visual learners.  If it fell
out of favor, I suppose that was due to the influence of
transformational-generative grammar, but TG grammar is especially focused
on "deep" structures, not on the surface structures that get
diagrammed.
Consider two famous sentences that are used to argue for the importance of an abstract representation for purposes of interpretation.

1) John is easy to please.
2) John is eager to please.

In (1), John is the one being pleased, but in (2) John is the one doing the pleasing. 

My understanding is that a concern for SURFACE STRUCTURE would not be able to show this.  Conventional diagramming (and I may be wrong on this) would diagram (1) and (2) the same.  

Conventional diagramming could show this difference, but that would require the addition of some "abstract" form to capture that John is the underlying object of please in (1) but is the underlying subject of please in (2).  Such an addition would destroy the "advantage" of diagramming as showing "surface" structures.

This example is important for any teacher of English (L1 or L2) to understand.  There are any number of examples of L2 learners interpreting (1) as John doing the pleasing (in other words, just like (2)), and Carol Chomsky has shown that many L1 learners of English until about the age of eight also interpret (1)  like (2). 
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 There is room for both approaches.
This may be the case, but I don't understand the need for an approach which does not accurately describe the knowledge that all competent speakers of the language know.

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University


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